Orbit control for a spacecraft around a splitting contact binary asteroid

This thesis examines an orbit control problem for a spacecraft around a contact binary asteroid considering the dynamics of both the spacecraft and the asteroid itself. It is known that approximately 15\% of the near-Earth asteroids are binary, and among these the fraction of contact binaries is between 6 and 10%. Most contact binary asteroids are constituted of an agglomeration of smaller boulders maintained together due to their internal gravity, which is a relatively unstable configuration. Therefore, even a minor change in their mass distribution, like would be caused by the landing of mining machines, can result in a modification of the asteroid's structure including a landslide or a splitting. Particularly, separation of the asteroid into two parts is problematic in terms of orbit control, because of the consequences on the gravitational field of the asteroid. Traditional two-body orbital control methods cannot be applied to the missions to those asteroids because they do not consider the dynamic activities of the asteroids themselves. This thesis proposes and evaluates a control method to follow a predefined path under unknown states of the splitting binary asteroid.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Aerospace Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Bouvier, Jean-Baptiste

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ho, Koki

• Orbit control, Adaptive Control, Binary Asteroid, Path Following, Orbital mechanics, Trajectory Tracking

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Jean-Baptiste Bouvier

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/102856

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/102856